Tirupati Store

Tirupati Store is at 232 in the I.N.A Market. If you’ve ever been to I.N.A, you know it’s a maze of different shops selling everything from imported cheese to local vegetables. Our store is tucked in there among the others. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze inside because we try to stock as much as possible on the shelves. We have things for the kitchen, snacks, and some general household items that people ask for. The floor is made of old stone and it’s worn down in the spots where people stand the most. We get a real mix of people coming through—locals doing their weekly shopping and tourists who look a bit lost. We spend a lot of our time restocking the shelves because things move pretty fast. My brother and I usually run the counter, and we’ve learned to recognize most of our regulars by sight. We don't have a big marketing plan or anything fancy. We just open the shutters in the morning and start checking what needs to be ordered for the next day. Sometimes the delivery trucks are late because of the traffic on the main road, so we just have to be patient. It’s a busy little shop, and it can get a bit hectic on the weekends, but we’ve gotten used to the noise and the constant flow of people. We just take it one customer at a time.